I have just gotten a (vitual) handshake which promises an interview with Mr. Shuttleworth. We would like to ask our readers for input and collect some of our readers’ questions. Our intent is to focus on exclusionary deals and the integrity of Free software although any ‘lighter’ questions would be very suitable as well. Our controversial domain name aside, I worry that my direct questions intimidated Gunther Deschner (of Samba), who was willing to do an interview with us after his departure from Novell.

Please help us make this interview a comfortable one for Mr. Shuttleworth.

Thank you in advance for your participation. Remember that it is a community site which we hope to make more reader-driven, not editor-driven.

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That will be a nasty
“Mark do you think that actions like boycottnovell.com are good for community? Is it smart to boycott distro like openSUSE? OpenSUSE has hundreds of great developers and saying them “we don’t like you anymore” is a good idea? It is against community and openSUSE is still a community distro.”

Does Mark consider Mono as a problem in regards to Microsoft waving their sabre, and would he remove it from the base Ubuntu distro? And even if he doesn’t, would he at least make it easier to remove if someone wanted to? (like it not being a part of the meta package ubuntu-desktop iirc)

While it is not clear that a patenting deal will affect the integrity of free software (after all the deal only touches MS and Novell, and not third parties) integrating proprietary software that is required to run free software might do so (see proprietary drivers). Don’t Ubuntu’s actions give a disincentive for free software developers to write and improve free drivers by admitting proprietary drivers?

Mark once said (I believe) that Ubuntu will always be available for free download. Does this mean that the /best/ version will always be available free? Or might he start to sell a “with bells & whistles” version, and only offer a basic version free to us proles?

I love the free CD thing going on at http://shipit.ubuntu.com, this makes Ubuntu available even to folk who don’t have a fast net link (ie most of the world). Does he plan to keep Shipit going “forever”?

Oh, and a word of crawly congrats: I have tried a few different distros, but I /lurve/ Ubuntu and I’ve settled on it as my distro of choice. I hope Mark does keep sticking up for the “little man” – a decent, free OS empowers us more than even democracy in some countries!

As Ubuntu grows in popularity as a server OS, how does Canonical plan to support it? What changes are coming from Canonical in terms of enterprise support for Ubuntu? What specifically is offered now, to tempt users to try Ubuntu in the enterprise, and not Novell or Red Hat? How far has enterprise Linux support come, in your opinion?

I am pretty much along the lines of David’s question, how does Mr. Shuttleworth distinguish between Novell’s pragmatic but GPL-questionable approach to IP peace with Microsoft and Ubuntu’s pragmatic but GPL-questionable approach to including binary-only drivers?

All indicators tell that Ubuntu is the most popular distro. At the same time, all polls tell us that KDE is the most popular desktop.

I will leave the fact that these two conclusions do not add up in the middle. BUT…. I would like to know why Ubuntu is still not serious about a true KDE implementation. Please do not try to convince us that Kubuntu gets as much attention as Ubuntu. It does not (one example: the plugin finder).

My main question is “How can you possibly negotiate on behalf of all of the contributors to all Linux and OSS products used in Linux, and not disclose the exact nature of the agreement to those stake-holders?

Seriously. Novell is a late-comer to the game, and is riding the wave of a phenomenon that started in 1993 and continued to build – WITHOUT Novell’s support – until 2005, when Novell FINALLY decided to promote SUSE instead of trying to kill it.

Remember when Novell signed the deal with Microsoft over UnixWare in 1994(-5?)? Novell scuttled their Workstation/desktop/laptop platform development. Microsoft was supposed to scuttle their server development. I don’t think Microsoft even slowed it down.

Ray Noorda had to create new companies (Caldera and TrollTech) to keep that talent pool, and make sure that they had the chance to get a Linux based workstation platform to market.

Had Novell pushed hard enough in 1994, when Windows NT 3.x was flapping, Chicago was vaporware that was not to be delivered for almost 22 months, and Microsoft was still trying to keep OEMs loyal to Windows 3.1, they could have made a huge killing in the market.

Instead Novell almost went bankrupt, they sold unlimited license rights to Linux for a pittance, and wrote Microsoft was given almost 2 years to retake control of the market with Windows 95, which killed off Netware substantially.

And Microsoft “thanked” them, by releasing replacements for Netware and NDS.

If Novell has signed away ANY rights without getting the consent from the developers who crontributed so much to Linux and OSS, it could turn into one UGLY class action lawsuit.

When Mark started Ubuntu and Canonical, he said time would tell if it was a sensible business decision or philantropy. How is the financial balance now? Does Canonical/Ubuntu make money or is it a money pit?

Mark.
Gutsy Gibbon will have support for some Winmodem chips.
An area not covered at all well by open source drivers.
I guess that will not cause too many to give up writing those drivers!
I will finally be able to look at getting more people to try Linux.
One friend converted to broadband recently and I dual booted XP/Feisty on his new machine. He asked me to remove Windows!

One hot topic in the OSS world is proprietary software. The hardcore geeks want only open source software. But most of the luddites just want whatever works. And it would seem like Ubuntu is trying to reach out to the luddites. What is your stance?

I only run Ubuntu. I even convinced my wife and kids to use it after our Windows PC got zombied no matter how hard we tried to control it. Thanks for making a sensational product.

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Red Hat recently told Reuters that they were actually considering the patent deal with The Beast before the deal with Novell went through. Can Canonical stand the pressure and resist dealing with The Beast? In fact, if I were a betting man, I’d bet that The Beast has men in black suits showing up in South Africa, putting free PCs and free MS software in schools, snatching up all the good programmers, then driving over to meet with legislators to try and create patent, extradition, and other changes in the legal system to try and thwart Ubuntu. If the latest news is that Dell is selling Ubuntu very well now, and if even HP is taking notice and considering it too, it’s an easy bet to see what devious means The Beast will be up to.

—

Could Canonical design a web-based management system sort of like ebox-platform (http://ebox-platform.com/), but for Ubuntu Server? Not only would this be great for building server appliances for a web app I’m designing, but it would be great for mom and pop shops (small businesses) to have a replacement for a Microsoft print server, file server, domain controller, dns server, dhcp server, etc. And if it can’t be part of Canonical, could it be another company funded by Canonical? (Pay me — I’ll build it if I had the cash to quit my day job. )

You’ve said that Ubuntu will distribute non-free drivers until the user base is large enough to influence hardware manufacturers.

Assuming that most Ubuntu users don’t have ethical or technical issues with non-free software, what incentive do you think they’ll have to start saying “no” to non-free drivers at some point in the future?

David, just a quick personal opinion here — as a KDE user, I advise that you look at the wonderful things that are coming in KDE 4. The project is very much alive and it thrives. It certainly has a direction.

Roy,
I agree that KDE4 looks pretty promising, but there is more to creating a desktop distribution than just packaging the latest desktops environments. For example, I think someone mentioned earlier the codec work done in Ubuntu doesn’t show up in Kubuntu. I don’t think I saw the restricted driver manager in the last release either. IMO Adept is a usability nightmare. There are several things that just look poorly thought out. I’m not trying to attack the Kubuntu developers here. I just think they need more help and attention from the main project.

Who do you guys think that are developing linux and open source and paying it?
Don’t you know/realize that only free-given ubuntu isn’t getting any incomes, so it can’t do much development either. Other linux/open source -companies, like Novell are making the development actually and earn the money for it with their products that they sell.

In that list there isn’t Canonical – because it just isn’t doing much.
It just packs software that others do and others pay.

So, the development of linux and open source isn’t free either, it need money too and actually the work is done by paid developers of commercial companies and with their money of their products.

There seems to be some kinda illusions of linux and open source made freely – but that’s just an wrong illusion. Google pays 90% of Firefox development. IBM, SUN and others pay the development of OpenOffice. Commercial companies pay the development of linux. There’s actually verhy little of non-paid job behind them. And the development of linux and open source need so much profession too, like with OS X and Windows, so it just can’t be done by whoever – it need profession, so the development is highly professional too. Mainly the user group support web sites and such things rely partly on free non-paid job.

And Mark is funding the operation of Canonical and the free distribution of linux … but the money comes from his previous commercial earnings, and there’s sure limit of that. So present just free distribution stage of ubuntu is sure not gonna ongo forever. It too needs incomes in the future.

And SUSE/Novell that the ubuntu-folks are blaiming is doing the hard work, funding and making the real coding and development and then gives it to Canonical to use and distribute free. So why on earth you are blaiming Novell, of the enabling all this linux and open source?
Think a little!

The lunacy of the EPO with its patent maximalism will likely go unchecked (and uncorrected) if Battistelli gets his way and turns the EPO into another SIPO (Croatian in the human rights sense and Chinese in the quality sense)

Another long installment in a multi-part series about UPC at times of post-truth Battistelli-led EPO, which pays the media to repeat the lies and pretend that the UPC is inevitable so as to compel politicians to welcome it regardless of desirability and practicability

Implementing yet more of his terrible ideas and so-called 'reforms', Battistelli seems to be racing to the bottom of everything (patent quality, staff experience, labour rights, working conditions, access to justice etc.)

"Good for trolls" is a good way to sum up the Unitary Patent, which would give litigators plenty of business (defendants and plaintiffs, plus commissions on high claims of damages) if it ever became a reality

Microsoft's continued fascination with and participation in the effort to undermine Alice so as to make software patents, which the company uses to blackmail GNU/Linux vendors, widely acceptable and applicable again